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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27066925">Night Singing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SansaDaaeAndAryaBelacqua/pseuds/SansaDaaeAndAryaBelacqua'>SansaDaaeAndAryaBelacqua</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Stand - Stephen King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Genderbending, Kingdom Hearts References, M/M, Stephen King References</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:27:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>930</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27066925</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SansaDaaeAndAryaBelacqua/pseuds/SansaDaaeAndAryaBelacqua</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fran Goldsmith/Lucy Swann, Stu Redman/Larry Underwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Night Singing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dachichan225/gifts">Dachichan225</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCMorrigan/gifts">JCMorrigan</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“When you walk away!<br/>You don’t hear me say!<br/>Please, oh baby, don’t go!<br/>Simple and Clean is the way<br/>That you’re making me feel tonight<br/>It’s hard to let it go”.</p>
<p>Stuart George Redman did not expect to be awoken in the middle of the goshdarn night by the sound of his crush belting out some pre-apocalyptic pop song to the high heavens.</p>
<p>They were almost at Hemingford Home now, having just passed some town that seemed to be more cornfields than houses and didn’t seem to have a population over the age of eighteen. Joe had fallen asleep next to Lucy and Fran, Jane Cullen and Natalie Andros were off scouting ahead for resources with Susan and Dayna, Glen Bateman was burying his head in some novel about a Victorian love triangle (Glendon Pequod Bateman was the last person Stu would ever suspect of being a Paul Sheldon fan), Judge Ferris was maintaining their campfire, Nadine was sleeping sound for the first time in days, and Harold was off somewhere else because of an incident where he had gotten drunk on old beers while they were resting in a decaying old bar and proceeded to vomit all over Stu’s clothes.</p>
<p>And Lawson Jonathan Underwood was off singing.</p>
<p>Loudly.</p>
<p>And badly.</p>
<p>Stu walked carefully up behind Larry and said</p>
<p>“You know, it’s a good thing Nat is deaf, cause otherwise she would downvote your song faster than you can say ‘Simon Cowell’”.</p>
<p>Larry turned around and sighed.</p>
<p>“It’s not actually my song, Stu. It’s from a video game called 'Kingdom Hearts’”.</p>
<p>“I’ve heard of it” Stu said, “Is that the one where you play as some kind of Old West gunslinger?”</p>
<p>“ No, Stu” Larry responded, “It’s a crossover between Disney and Final Fantasy. Used to play those games all the time before what happened…happened”.</p>
<p>“Never played games as a kid” Stu said, “My mom could barely afford to keep our house, let alone buy us electronic playthings”.</p>
<p>“You missed out Stu my man” Larry said, “Man you missed out”.</p>
<p>“I guessed as much” Stu said, weeping a little at the thought of a world gone forever.</p>
<p>Larry Underwood wrapped his arm around Stu Redman’s broad back and tried to wipe away his future husband’s tears.</p>
<p>“Look Stu, I can’t pretend everything’s gonna be fine. I’d be legitimately surprised if there are more than like 2,000,000 folks left in the whole of America, and I’d be lying if I said the nightmares don’t upset and horrify me just like they upset and horrify everyone else. However, I still hope everything will be okay in the end. Maybe we’ll all become folk heroes to our descendants, like King Arthur or Wyatt Earp”.</p>
<p>“Sometimes, Larry, I wonder if we’ll even make it through the next winter”.</p>
<p>“If our ancestors could survive with little more than spears and skins, Stuart my love, I think we can survive once we have a community”.</p>
<p>“To be fair, Lin-Manuel Springsteen” Stu responded, “Most of our Paleolithic ancestors wore far more clothing than your son”.</p>
<p>Larry burst out laughing and holding his head in his hands, the sounds of his mirth echoing through the wastelands around them.</p>
<p>“Glad I made you laugh, Law” Stu said.</p>
<p>“It wasn’t just your joke, Stuart” Larry replied, “I also thought of something else. Before Captain Trips went down, there were all these ridiculous people who went around claiming vaccines caused their children to become autistic and thus they were willing to let their own freaking kids die rather than 'risk’ them becoming neurodivergent. And now most of those dumbasses are deader than the dinosaurs while our little family of neurodivergent people survived and are set to build a new society out west”.</p>
<p>Stu thought about Larry’s comments for a while and realised that over half of their group (Stu himself, Nick, Tom, Glen, Fran, Joe, possibly Lucy and/or Nadine) were somewhere on the Autism Spectrum (Stu had never been able to tell the difference between Asperger’s and regular Autism) while Larry himself had talked earlier about his experiences with ADHD and how his mentor Rich Tozier had taught him to deal with it when he was a teenager in California.</p>
<p>(The rebuilding of civilisation has fallen to the freaks and outcasts of the old world)</p>
<p>All around Stu and Larry, the wind howled its mournful song and the coyotes sang their hymns to their beloved moon. The air was growing cold now, and soon it would be time for the travellers to get their rest before continuing inwards step by step and mile by mile to Boulder, Colorado. Stu and Larry walked together back to the spot where Stu had been sleeping before Larry awoke him and lay down together in the cool night air and upon the dusty ground.</p>
<p>“You know Stu, I kinda came to hate 'Baby can you dig your man’ over time. I’m proud of making it and I’m glad it caught on, but after a while it became the only thing people wanted to hear from me. Anytime I tried to do something more experimental or risky, the crowds would not let me do it until I’d sang that goddamn song. I’m kinda glad I no longer have to put up with those fans anymore”.</p>
<p>Stu chuckled at this comment. It made him remember why he had never cared for interacting with other people back in Arnette.</p>
<p>“Good night, Law” Stu said.</p>
<p>“Good night, Stuart” Larry replied as they fell asleep together, him and Stu holding hands as tight as they could.</p>
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